An Exercise of Secrecy
by westpoints
Summary: complete 'Or maybe I'll be one of those faded stars.' Kelsi's character study of Sharpay and her many secrets that shouldn't matter.


I know some people don't read summaries, and really, my summaries are very ambiguous, and there's not a lot of room in the spot. So. This story-idea-vingette thing sprang out of two issues.  
1) My great desire to write a response to a Wicked challenge (a Gelphie one, nonetheless) and my frustration at my inability to write Elphaba correctly  
2) My countless protofics that I started in HSM and never got around to finishing (because they were bad, and basically paired Sharpay with anything that moved).  
So I decided, as practice, to meld Elphaba with a Holly Golightly sort of character, and infuse that into Sharpay. Which gives us a Gelphie background, and a slightly OOC Sharpay. For those of you not in the know, femmeslash, because seriously, we need some on HSM. I'll go ahead and disclaim: HSM is not mine.

Okay. If there are any of you left, enjoy.

* * *

Sharpay Evans was a secret. Oh, not in the sense of undiscovered talent or hidden personalities, no, she was well aware of her abilities and completely genuine in her diva style.

Sharpay Evans was a secret in her movement, in her words, in her needs and desires and her thoughts.

Because no one knew what she really wanted, not really, even if she did fawn over Troy and contemplate Gabriella's vivid mutilation. Those were material. No one knew where she wanted to live, what kind of life she wanted, or, even, who she wanted to love.

Well, that's a bit ridiculous. No one really knows who they're going to love, so it's foolish trying to impose _want_ on _will_. But seriously. There were so many things that Sharpay Evans kept secret, that she became a secret.

Sharpay was a secret, in and of herself. Her love must also be secret.

So Sharpay Evans was a secret lover. A careless, intentionally cruel, strangely selfless lover. A cold lover, and not in the metaphorical sense. When she was being secret, all the warmth that fed her not-secret life seeped into her movement, her words, her needs and desires and her thoughts, away from frivolous things like fingers and lips.

"Sometimes," she'd whispered, once, those frigid fingertips raising goose bumps on heated skin, doing nothing but trailing shivers (for now), "sometimes I wonder if I'm really that hopeless."

She didn't wait for an answer. "I mean really, putting all that effort into fifteen days out of the year, when I could be doing _so_ much more if Mother would just let me go to New York for that program. God knows, we can afford to go, and then I can get over this ridiculous...crushlet on Troy." She tended to forget things like _tact_ and _coherence_ at times like these.

"But then, I guess you'd miss me too much, and I wouldn't do that. Besides, New York already has enough child stars. When they grow up, though," she said, warming her hands on tense shoulders, sometimes kneading the muscles but really just stealing heat, "there won't be any left. Just me. Or maybe I'll be one of those faded stars."

She smiled, then, because really, she knew better, and didn't make another sound. Well, some sounds, but certainly not conversational ones.

And she _was _careless, wasn't she, as secret as she was determined to be, she was really careless. Hurried fumbling in props rooms always resulted in lost shoes, socks, once a lacy bra that looked strangely in place among cabaret dresses, things that took the first five minutes of fifth period to find. And then they would go to their separate classes, teetering in just before the late bell, Sharpay easily fixing her lip gloss before anyone noticed.

Muffled cries backstage, off-key chords on the piano (which really was not as comfortably kinky as people would have you think), accidental crashes of costume racks—really, Sharpay was very careless about being a secret. But she still kept every part of this secret, somehow, and maybe that was the best part of it all. That it was a secret, and she was letting someone in on it. Just one person.

And god, she could be mean. She could kiss like hell, quickly make work of buttons and t-shirts and jeans, her tongue descending, lower, lower, lower, but never quite low enough, and when she'd had enough of pleading, she would smile, and slide back up, cold lips pressing against warm shoulder, warm neck, warm mouth, siphoning warmth, life maybe, sculpting a whimpering mess of a human being beneath her. And then it was _over_. Totally and completely, not more lust in her, cold shower-black coffee _over_, and no amount of begging could make her finish.

And sometimes she could be comforting, and they would just sit in the bleachers of the gym, just to be different, tossing words between each other, and that was another secret, that Sharpay Evans liked _words_, _liked_ words like "phantasmagorical."

"But of course, you can't put it to music. It's just too...clunky of a word, and don't you dare try," she'd said. She thumped through a leftover script of _Twinkle Town_. "D'you think I was ever really right for this part? You saw Troy and Gabriella's audition, d'you really think they were better? Actually, no, that's the wrong question. D'you think Gabriella was better than me?"

She didn't wait for an answer. "Probably," she said. "I've never been in love, I don't think. And they think they're in love. And really, thinking is all that matters." She sighed. "It was a good script, though, even if the lyrics were a bit hokey. God, did I really just say 'hokey'? Well, it was. But there will be other scripts, and the tune was catchy. See how well _Wicked _did?"

Sometimes, she brought up past people just to remind herself that they were real. What she did now, _this_ sort of relationship wasn't real, not to her, and sometimes she needed help keeping it not real. Everything Sharpay showed the world was real, and in a sense, everything that was real she showed to the world. It never occurred to her that maybe she was the one that wasn't real, not her lover. That maybe to everyone else, what she didn't show was the real part.

"I think Zeke probably made the best cookies ever, but really, he was just a follower. I mean," she rolled over the bench and settled in the footspace, making sure that a blanket protected her from the residue of grimy shoes, "if you have a bunch of followers around with him, that's great, but if it's just you and him, he comes up a bit...short. That was a bad pun, I'm sorry."

She did apologize for some things, then, in a slightly off-handed, self-serving way. "Well, how long did you think this was going to last? This whole mingling-all in this together? Seriously. I said so. And everyone called me a pessimist." She kissed the warm fingers she held in her hand. "I'm sorry for being a pessimist, but I was right. All the basketball lunkheads gave up their drama-slash-science nerd girls, and all those girls said 'Thank God,' and now we're here.

A smile quirked her mouth. "They weren't really good friends, anyway, so it's better that this whole thing fell apart before we actually got attached to them. Well, you at least. You wandered the furthest. I mean, even before..._this _started, I was always scared of losing you to someone else." Sharpay never could bring herself to name what it was she'd gotten herself attached to now.

She kissed the fingers again. "Even with your adorably cute miniscule backbone and your breaking free routine for a few weeks back then, the whole thing was a bore. I'm sorry for trying to knock out Troy and Gabriella, I guess, although I shouldn't have to be. I guess I should really be sorry for trying to ruin a good time for you. Well, then, I'm sorry. Please forgive me," she said in a mockingly morose voice, and then laughed.

And sometimes she could be needy, though that was very rare, and it was a secret she really didn't intend to share, because even in her breathy, Scarlett O'Hara voice that raised neck hairs and sent shivers down spines, for both of them, she somehow retained a vestige of control. "We need to run through that last riff," she'd hiss. "In the rehearsal room," never letting anyone forget that she was the star, and she got to call the shots without any dispute.

And there was running of some kind that had to do with voices, but no rehearsing. And it was times like these that she clung on the most, pale white fingers twisting in brown hair, mouth contorting in deliciously stifled screams, and she didn't really consider this a secret, didn't consider it not real, for a few minutes of her life.

Sometimes, when she was desperate-needy after school or her room, and had those few minutes, she'd lie on her side and trace knobby vertebrae with a sharp nail. "You know," she'd whisper to the back, "sometimes I think I might love you. But I don't think you love me very much, so there's no point in exchanging the words. But just so you know."

And then the warmth would drain from her movements, her words, her needs and desires and her thoughts, back into her fingers and lips, and she'd turn away.

She didn't really mean it. About the loving. Her love was a secret, it wasn't real, not really, so she could love no one.

Sometimes, when Sharpay Evans was being secretive, though, Kelsi Nielsen found herself thinking about falling in love with Sharpay. (Just because Sharpay thought she loved Kelsi, and such covert love should be reciprocated, even if neither of them really thought so.)

She never told Sharpay.

Kelsi never wanted to be in love with Sharpay, but she did hope that Sharpay was in love with her, just so they could stay a secret a little longer.

* * *

If you've stuck with me this long...I would buy you candy, but I'm not too sure if that's appropriate. Anyway. I do believe I've invented a new pairing...oh dear. We'll call it...Kelpay? Dunno; there are two others, and we'll ask them if they're around. It was a very enlightening exercise, and I'm a bit scared of myself right now.

Hrm. Please review?


End file.
